


Fading

by holdouttrout



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-04
Updated: 2008-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdouttrout/pseuds/holdouttrout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I had this image of Cam standing alone, making a choice between death and ascension. I started to write that story, but wrote this instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fading

He was something of a curiosity around these parts. He lived by himself on a hill just outside the village, and while he was friendly, he kept to himself more and more as the years went by.

He had many memories that weighted down his frame, and a stiffness in his muscles that made him conserve his movements, each one one of the last. His bones felt insubstantial and frail.

Sometimes, as he looked over the valley on clear, spring days, he thought that if he could just let go of the past, roll it off his shoulders and down his back, he'd find that his bones had become hollow, like a bird's, and he'd just rise up into the air. The possibility dangled before him, and sometimes he almost reached out his hand, only to turn away at the last moment.

He mostly took care of himself, even now that he ached when he moved, but Chilha visited him when she could get away. She was a young girl with dreams in her eyes, eyes that nearly wounded him each time he looked at her. Long ago, he'd been used to being around people with that look, a look that saw beyond here and now and searched for more, and when he'd first arrived here, he'd been startled that no one else had it. When Chilha first climbed up to his house, first looked him in the eye, he'd nearly sent her away again.

He'd been so used to forgetting. Remembering was painful, and no one else here shared the burden, so he'd stuffed it away, buried deeper than the physical memories he'd stashed in the bottom of the trunk at the foot of his bed.

But Chilha was curious, and her eyes demanded stories--all the stories he could tell. She'd set down the bowl of soup or hunk of bread, and then she'd watch him eat it, waiting until he'd licked up the last crumb.

"Tell me about Daniel," she'd say, and he'd flash back to a hospital bed and those wary, blue eyes, or he'd remember a pointing finger and a raised voice, or a head bent over a book.

Chilha always wanted more of Daniel, and he knew why--he was like her, even more so than the rest, although she loved the stories about the alien who had renounced his god or the woman who had been a god or the woman who had "saved our asses with her brain more times than with any weapon" almost as much.

Sometimes he knew he'd already told her a story, but she never seemed to mind, just listened to his laughter dissolve into a fit of coughing, offering him tea when his voice rasped.

Sometimes she'd tell him about her brothers and sisters, or about her friends who were making marriages and babies. She always talked about these things as if slightly bewildered, her fingers tracing the grain of the wood on the table as she spoke, traveling distances that represented the distances she'd travel by foot, later.

She wasn't made for staying in one place, and he only hoped that she'd find someone with that same look, someone to keep her company on her journey.

Each time she left, she'd offer him her hand, and he'd take it, feeling the warm smoothness of her skin. She'd smile, and nod her head, and thank him for sharing his memories with her. He'd watch her pick her way down the path until she was out of sight, and then he'd climb into his bed and shut his eyes, the past playing on his eyelids until he fell asleep.

Each day he felt a little weaker, a little less connected to the earth, and each day his stories grew more fragmented. Chilha came by more often, now, tending to his fire, his house, his life.

"Tell me about yourself," she said, and gradually his memories became younger and younger, his life before the Stargate taking precedence, his life on the farm, his parent's love for him, the dreams he'd had of flying, of finding something out there, somewhere, that would be impossible and amazing and more than he could imagine. Chilha laughed at the stories he told about his friends, the pranks they pulled, his old girlfriends and the one that got away twice, and then she'd lay her head on his hand and tell him the stories of the impossible, the ones he'd lived through but couldn't remember as well anymore.

"When you first saw the Stargate, you touched it, felt its history," she'd say quietly, reverently, and he'd remember the feeling of the strange metal under his fingers, how the world had fallen away in that moment, how he knew he'd finally found his someday at last. And then her warm voice would tell him the stories, breathe life into people she only knew by name, and he'd let the memories roll over him, as precious as anything he had ever owned.

Each time she came she thanked him as if he was doing her the favor.

Finally his words deserted him, his memories just beyond his reach. Chilha came and found him staring out his window, looking blankly over the hills in the east.

"I feel light today," he said, feeling strong and sounding weak, and Chilha gathered him up, tucked him into his bed. She started a story, but he didn't recognize it, and she stopped, taking his hand and holding it as he breathed in, carefully.

"I'm old," he said in wonder, and closed his eyes. Chilha tightened her grip, but his hand slipped away.


End file.
